


Time, Please

by Olcanarmo



Category: Ashes to Ashes (UK TV), Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23433733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olcanarmo/pseuds/Olcanarmo
Summary: Takes place after the last episode of Ashes to Ashes. Massive spoilers for the end of the series.
Relationships: Alex Drake/Gene Hunt
Kudos: 32





	Time, Please

**Author's Note:**

> Written in a tearful hurry after the end of Ashes to Ashes. Obviously an old little fic, but I am digging it out because of the Life on Mars rewatch going on in my Twitter timeline.

She listened to the voices growing closer.

A young man’s voice was shouting, “Stop it! Leave him alone!” He sounded hoarse and desperate, as if he was addressing someone who was beyond reason.

There was a thump that could have been a punch being thrown, another that her imagination insisted was a kick. An explosion of pained breath.

A hand on her shoulder stopped her when she would have rushed forward.

She recognised the next voice. It was hateful and insane and plausible all at once. It said, “The thing about Gene Hunt, Michael, is that it’s all a show. See past the coat, the boots, and that ridiculous car, and he is just a scared young man without the sense to keep from getting shot. That is the truth that your Guv is unwilling to confess. And if your suspect won’t tell you the truth,” the reasonable tone shredded and vanished, “the Fenchurch East way is to BEAT IT OUT OF HIM!”

There was another sickening thump.

“I know you’re in there, Gene,” continued the mad voice. “Skinny and cowering. Why don’t you just change back? Why don’t you show Michael who you are?”

She heard scuffling, and then the young man’s voice came again, strained, as if he was holding someone back: “He’s not changing, you mad bastard! Guv? Guv, please? What’s happening?”

She drew in the first breath she had taken in a very long time, and pressed her forehead against the pane of frosted glass in front of her. Beyond it, the three men were just shadows, but there was no mistaking the next voice. Nobody else could sound so gloriously impatient.

“What is happening, Michael, is that Jim Keats is not really a copper. And because he is not a copper, he has overlooked a fact so obvious that it should be blinding him.  
“You have known me a long time, Jimbo, which is a privilege you do not deserve. You might have noticed that I have been a copper for all that time. I have met some of the finest people imaginable, and the sort of evil little twerps you would wet yourself thinking about. And thanks to this breadth of experience and three square meals a day, I am all grown up and ready to kick your sorry Southern arse.”

“Go ahead and try, Gene,” Keats said. “And while you’re trying, I’ll blow your brains out for a second time.”

Michael suddenly yelled in pain, and the two closest shadows beyond the window flew apart. One of them crumpled, and the other moved in the unmistakable body language of a man raising and aiming a gun.

The third shadow froze.

Keats chuckled.

“Time, please,” said Nelson, and lifted his hand from her shoulder.

Alex opened the door and stepped through.  
In the dark street outside, the man who must be Michael was down on the ground. Keats was pointing a gun at Gene. They all turned as the pub door opened, Keats snarling, Gene almost inscrutable. He accepted her sudden appearance as if there was nothing strange about it, and took advantage of Keats’ distraction to punch him in the face. Keats staggered backwards, swinging his arm around to point the gun at Alex. He squinted in the white light that blazed from the doorway behind her.

Alex shot him.

Keats collapsed, bleeding, and Gene kicked his gun away from him. He turned back to Alex, his face still giving nothing away and his eyes a trace wary.

“You haven’t forgotten me, have you, Guv?” she asked.

“You’re too bloody annoying to forget, Bolly. I thought I’d seen the last of you. Did they throw you out for dancing on the tables?”

“They sent me back,” she said. “They thought you needed me.”

“That’s where they were wrong, Bolls,” he said. “I had him exactly where I wanted him.”

“Yes, Guv.”

“Nice of them to send you out armed,” he acknowledged.

“It was, wasn’t it?” She couldn’t stop an impish smile from appearing.

He wiped blood off his face and said, “So, Chris, Shaz, Raymondo...”

“They’re fine,” she said, her smile becoming softer. “They’re happy. You did well by them.”

“Are they...” he gestured at the street around them.

“No,” she said, gently. “It’s just me.”

“That’s more than enough,” he said.

“Is it?” she asked, her eyes searching his.

“Yes, Alex, it is,” he said impatiently. “Or it would be, if you stopped standing there like a prozzie on a rainy night and gave me a hand with our collar.”

But while they had been talking, Keats had gone. Even the blood on the tarmac had vanished. Michael remained where they had left him, looking white and sick. Gene dragged him to his feet.

“Michael,” he said, “this is your lucky day. I am going to ignore the fact that you just watched our prisoner walk away.”

Michael was wide-eyed. “But he just vanished! He winked at me and vanished!” 

“I said that I am going to ignore it,” Gene said. “And if Gene Hunt is going to ignore it, you will have the decency to do the same. We came here so I could buy you a drink.”

“Guv, you should know,” Michael said. “This... this morning. I drove your Mercedes. That’s how I got there. I was running late because I met Keats.”

“I know that,” Gene growled. “I am buying you a drink because you did get there in time, and we have one of the nastiest men in London locked in the cells. You did a good job and the Mercedes doesn’t have a scratch on it. I checked. Now go and get a table.”

Michael looked at the glowing white door of the Railway Arms and then back at them.  
“Are you coming?” he asked, doubtfully.

Alex was aware of Gene giving her his full attention. “Not me,” she said. “I’m not done here.”

“You go ahead,” said Gene, turning Michael in the right direction and giving him a slap on the back. “I need a quick word with Bolly here.”

“Guv, who is she?” Michael asked.

“She is DI Drake. She is CID. Now go and get the drinks in.”

After the pub door closed and the light faded, Gene and Alex walked back to his car. It was fire engine red.

“Keats was right,” said Alex, as they got in. “This is a ridiculous car. Why was Michael apologising about it?”

“He was a hopeless driver,” Gene said in disgust. “Drove like he was drunk and seeing double. I told him that if he touched my car, I would park it on top of him.”

Alex understood. “And this morning he got up the courage to drive it.”

“We needed back up. He arrived just in time.”

“So before...” she wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “When he _first_ arrived at Fenchurch East... Was he driving when it happened?”

“How should I know? If I spent my whole life analysing people like you do, Bolls, the station would fall apart around me. Not that I noticed you asking about Jimbo’s childhood. You shot him quick enough.”

“Yes,” she said. “I think there might be something that I haven’t forgiven him for.”

Gene’s silence was interrogatory.

“He interrupted a dance.”

The Mercedes left tire tracks behind.


End file.
